Compared to Warren, Harris, Castro and Buttigieg's plans, which were widely praised, I've seen plenty of criticism from the disability community of Klobuchar's plan. @JustStimming is a major authority on this.
@JustStimming There are a number of reasons why you see Democratic candidates courting disability rights activists and releasing policies when it wasn't a big deal even last cycle.
@JustStimming For one, there is a competitive primary. Last cycle, Hillary Clinton released a pretty comprehensive Autism policy. Sanders conversely, had little to no disability policy of which to speak and his Medicare for All Plan caught the ire of some.
rollcall.com/news/autism-ad…
rollcall.com/news/autism-ad…
@JustStimming Second of all, perhaps most importantly, is that disability policy has become explicitly more partisan in recent years, even before Trump. Republicans blocked the UN CRPD, which was largely symbolic and advocated for block-granting of Medicaid.
@JustStimming Trump's election, combined with a unified Republican government, expedited this process. The disability community was almost in lock-step in opposing Betsy DeVos' nomination as Education Secretary and NDSS was the outlier when it met with DeVos.
kansascity.com/news/politics-…
kansascity.com/news/politics-…
@JustStimming This culminated in attempts to repeal Obamacare in 2017. Disparate groups that often war with each other created a unified protest against it and led some of the most public protests during hearings and Senate offices. Left-wing groups owed them a debt.
thenation.com/article/disabi…
thenation.com/article/disabi…
@JustStimming But at the same time, I'd argue there were a few currents that were happening even before the 2000s: 2016 and 2020 are the first major elections where the generation born after the Americans with Disabilities Act has grown up.
@JustStimming Oh and I forgot a few other big sea changes that happened: one was that the past few decades have been seen more disabled people leave institutions and the 1980s-2000s saw changes in the DSM to autism diagnoses and more self-advocates emerged.
@JustStimming Now, notice what I didn't say was a big deal to disabled people in recent years: Trump's mocking of Serge Kovaleski. A lot of abled liberals were shocked by it. But it's always funny hearing them aghast at it compared to disabled people who really don't care about it.
@JustStimming So TL;DR: a lot of different shifting trends have met at one singular point during 2020 that has led to the disability community becoming a political constituency.
